Felled by a Child
by Rigato Caravel
Summary: Who knew that the world's most reviled dictator had a weakness for children and dogs? A Downfall fic about Adolf Hitler's friendship with a very special little girl.


Ok, I know I'm going to get a lot of hate mail for this little one-shot. Please read it before you go off on a rage tangent. I'm not a neo-Nazi or anything like that, and I'm not denying the acts done under Hitler's administration. This is just to show people a small piece of what Hitler was _actually_ like. He was human, and he had a very special friendship with Bernile Nienau and her mother. I'm sad to say Bernile died after the war at the age of 17. This is in her honor as well as in Hitler's.

This is going to be submitted as a Downfall fan fiction.

That is all.

Rig

* * *

"Give me that!"

A young child, a girl of around five years of age, ran through the grass. The hat was far too large for her head, her little hands clutching the black brim and her face a wide smile. A large black dog ran at her side, tongue happily lolling out of her mouth, shoulders pumping powerfully a hand's breath away.  
Bernile squealed happily, turning the corner of the imperious stone building and racing quite skillfully between the legs of a straight-backed officer. Her childish waddle seemed of a rather quick speed for her age, her energy flowing off of her like sunlight on the stones of the large house.

The startled man, broken out of his reverie guarding Haus Wachenfeld, had to dodge his party leader rounding the corner like the animal of his namesake, the wolf. Normally Herr Adolf Hitler would be walking around the area with his nose in a book or his glasses perched on his unusually triangular nose, mind deeper in thought than Dante in his inferno. But today his mood seemed light, playful as a she-wolf with her pups.

The guard stared at Hitler as the man paid him no attention and raced off after the little one, mumbling something under his breath about being too old. He was cresting fifty now, and in no shape to run about after someone forty five years younger. Another guard stationed at a nearby door chuckled and looked at the ground as the mustached politician took off after Bernile. A happy squeal was heard as well as a triumphant laugh. "Just don't mention what you see here, Herr Dahm." the older man told the younger, straightening his back with an amused smile on his face. "I know most of what goes on here would shock the people. They need a strong leader now, not one who chases after children. We keep up that appearance, even here."

Dahm watched their Fuhrer pick up the giggling girl and put her on his shoulders, racing about with Bernile struggling to hold onto the hat. "He seems so…different from the man shouting at the podium. If he wasn't of such advanced age I would swear him her father. Grandfather perhaps." He said to the other officer.

"It's alright, Herr Dahm." A young woman stepped outside of the house, spotting the young guard staring at his leader. "They fancy themselves Hansel and Gretel." She leaned against the doorframe, her soft brown hair falling around her face in heavy curls. She was a tall girl, waifish, the stitching of her dress at her waist at a width most women would kill for. Her legs were long, graceful and perched lightly on the balls of her bare feet like a deer about to take flight. An impossible catch to make for her suitors. Many men had spied her in their sights; none had since made the kill.

"I apologize, I didn't mean to stare." Dahm said quietly, watching the two at play down the hill.

The young woman sighed a soft laugh. "Katerine, please. Uncle Wolf couldn't have you being so formal to me." she said, tucking her curls behind one ear. Dahm noted her wrists were as delicate as his Fuhrer's bone china, the skin attractively pale.

The older guard smirked. "Young Wessler here is new to Haus Wachenfeld, Frauline, and you know how we talk. Excuse it as nothing more than mere gossip between two soldiers." He said.

"I would think he would prefer me to treat you as a formal guest of this house, Frauline." Dahm said as Adolf sat down in the grass, exhausted, letting the little girl happily plunk his hat back on his head and run off to gather flowers. "I do not want to pry, but is it true her grandfather and grandmother are both in Dauchau?" Dahm nodded toward the smiling child, who was picking up fistfuls of daisies. He caught the other guard shoot him a cautioning look.

The young woman's smile faded and she looked at the ground. Dahm looked at the other guard, who scowled and turned his attention back to the grounds. "I'm sorry." Dahm apologized, uncomfortably straightening himself and looking out across the knolls. Security was a relaxing job here...their Fuhrer was far removed from any danger of assassination.  
The woman sighed and attempted to smile at the guard, but instead she walked down the steps and approached her daughter. The older guard glared at the younger.  
"Do not talk about things like that. Reichfuhrer Himmler's work is strictly for talk amongst ourselves and officers. Not with others." he growled.

"Sorry Herr Blauvelt. It won't happen again." Dahm said, looking at the retreating back of the young woman. It had been extremely insensitive of him to bring up something that was regarded as a delicate matter even by the Schutzstaffel. He regretted bringing it up, but the thought of a Jewess and her young child here, playing with the Fuhrer, was a contradictory one at best.

_____________

Hitler thanked a servant who brought them tea, handing the child a cup before he took his own. "Ah, Frauline, you tire me." he said with a soft laugh, laying on his back in the grass. Bernile laid a daisy chain on top of the totenkopf and eagle symbols on his hat, adjusting them so they lay the breadth of the brim.  
"I'm going to make one for Blondie." she smiled, picking up a few choice flowers from her pile of daisies and beginning to weave another chain.

Adolf picked up his and slid it around his wrist, adjusting it over his cufflinks and admiring it for a moment. "I believe she'll enjoy feeling like a true woman. All the guard dogs will be jealous of her. At the next tea party we have her dance card will be full of eligible bachelors. I hear Herr Adalard fancies her." Hitler said, deftly plucking off his hat and putting it back on Bernile's head. The daisies slipped off into the grass and Bernile was content to ignore them in lieu of making yet another.

"He's too big, and he showed his teeth at me yesterday." Bernile said, a pout appearing on her face. "I like Werner. He shared my lunch." she added  
Her best friend laughed and sipped his tea, smiling in contentment at the spring sky above them. "Did he now? Well we shall have to have Herr Blauvelt give him a strong talking to." He said, examining the clouds with a critical eye. Rain threatened to fall, which only brought the promise of board games and long reading sessions with his favorite little sweetheart. Ah, short breaks like this from the Reich did his heart good. He needed to be around youth, not rooms thick with smoke and the stink of hatred. Sometimes being around Herr Himmler gave him the impression he was talking to a crocodile more than a man.

"Uncle Wolf, how long is it before you come to see us?" she asked at his side, noisily sipping tea and pushing the hat out of her eyes with grass-stained fingers marked with the milk of the daisies.  
Adolf cracked open one deep blue eye and lifted the corner of his mouth in a smile. "Make a trail of breadcrumbs for me and I shall follow it, Gretel." he said lazily. He heard her giggle beside him, struggling to tie a stem she'd mistakenly cut short.  
"You've got tea on your mustache, Uncle Wolf." she said, pointing at it.  
He wiggled the tea- stained mustache, making his little companion giggle, then neatly wiped it off with a hand.  
"When I grow up I'm going to be in your army, like Herr Blauvelt and Herr Dahm." She said, frowning as the knot eluded her.

"Are you now?" Hitler raised an eyebrow and looked over at her. "Wouldn't you rather marry a strong German boy and have him fight for you?"

She emphatically shook her head, the large hat rattling a bit on her small scalp. "I want to have a big gun and fight for Germany!" she said, raising a tiny fist containing the crushed remnants of her daisy chain. "Hail victory!"

Hitler wrapped his hand around her tiny fist, tutting at the state of it. "Look at these grass stains. No army in the world will protect me from your dear mother when she sees this." He said. Bernile dropped the damaged flowers and looked at her hands when her Uncle Wolf released them.

"Oh." She said softly, attempting to wipe them on her white sun dress. 


End file.
